Technically Speaking

Ms. magazine has once again given cover placement to a story about abortion. Its October 10 issue is a megaphone for women who are announcing, “We Had Abortions.”

Ironically, this new effort to defend abortion points out the failure of the pro-abortion movement during the past 30 years. As columnist Kathleen Parker points out, past arguments defending American abortion policies have focused on the technical aspects of abortion.

Eleanor Smeal, publisher of Ms. Magazine, loses no opportunity to point out the obvious to MSNBC's Tucker Carlson. Technically speaking, she reminds him that abortion is “a medical procedure, that's obvious.” Smeal can point to a long list of technical terminology that has been crafted to describe the indescribable.

The litany of techno-talk is, “It's a woman's right to choose a medical procedure that removes a small clump of cells from her own body… a simple surgical procedure, the D&E, dilation and evacuation, where the physician extracts the products of conception from the uterus.” And, technically speaking, they have described abortion.

In a natural progression, much of the dialogue describing the sex that leads to the product of conception that leads to the surgical procedure… all of this talk about sex… has also turned technical since Roe v. Wade. Sex education, as liberal abortion proponents would have it, is all about technique.

Going into the classroom with boxes of condoms and things to put condoms on, they have reduced sex to technique… ways that children can be taught technically how to have sex and be somewhat, moderately, possibly and hopefully saferrrrrrrrr.

If humans were cars, and if we were installing a muffler on a child car, perhaps we could let these educators get away with it. But we are not. And children are not. Cars, that is.

Cars are things. Humans are living things. Living, breathing, hoping, dreaming and loving. We are not meant to be handled by technoids who describe invasive “procedures” and erotic “actions” with detached language devoid of emotion.

My mind is seared with the memory of a Planned Parenthood educator who demanded allegiance to the language of technique. Speaking to a friendly National Organization of Women (NOW) audience, she decried the national acceptance of the “medically inaccurate” term partial-birth abortion. “That's not what it is!” she declared. “It's a D&E. That's the accurate medical terminology. There is no such procedure as partial-birth abortion.”

In the next breathe, she launched into a speech against abstinence education. “Those programs are terrible… talking about differences between men and women, emotional consequences of sex and promoting marriage.” Technically speaking, she demanded a return to procedural instructions on how to install a condom on a teen.

Technically speaking, the rationale of the past 30 years is that we only have to perfect the technical aspects of having sex without consequences and then describe that technique in a perfectly technical way. And it works… as long as you have a heart that is unmoved by a single human tear or the love expressed in a kiss on the cheek.

Why else would Ms. magazine, Planned Parenthood, and NOW work so hard to ignore the real pain of people who bought into the false promises of “safe sex”? Where are the articles describing the experiences of women who refused to be “Silent No More,” the women abused by an abortion industry that hides behind technique?

Already, commentaries responding to the Ms. magazine article are pointing out the obvious. Technique is never well-used to deal with matters of the human heart, the matters of sex… and love… as people have known them since Adam and Eve.

The magazine has invited women to open their hearts. And as the women describe why they “chose” abortion, readers are asking the many obvious questions that the editors left unasked… and unanswered.

Technically speaking, describing a medical procedure and the events of my life leading up to the surgery, leaves the most important questions unanswered. How did I close my eyes to the product of conception that could have held my hand and given me a hug? Where is the man who promised me love and protection?

Great women of courage have told this story. But you won't read about it in Ms. magazine.

Willing to deal truthfully with what sex and the consequences of sex are, courageous women have humbled themselves to reveal the lies of technical lingo. They lead important national movements on college campuses, in state legislatures, and in sex education programs.

This, Ms. Smeal, is a story worth telling. Consider it for your next issue. Technically speaking, though, I'm not holding my breath.

A former elementary school teacher, Jane Jimenez is now a freelance writer dedicated to issues of importance to women and the family. She writes a regular column titled “From the Home Front.” Her work has appeared in both Christian and secular publications. Jane and her husband Victor live in Phoenix and have two children.